This disclosure relates to virtual reality devices and systems for providing virtual encounters using virtual devices for communication, observation, and contact.
People can be separated by physical distances and yet can interact by conventional technologies such as telephones and teleconferencing. More recently with the advent of networking and especially the Internet people can hear each other's voice and see each other's images. Other developments have increased the perception of physical closeness.
For example, various types of virtual encounters are described in my published patent application US 2005-0130108 A1 published Jun. 16, 2005. In the published application, a mannequin or a humanoid-type robot can be deployed as a surrogate for a human. In one type of encounter, a mannequin can be paired with a remote set of goggles. In another type, the surrogate is configured such that a human with sensors can produce actuation signals that are sent to actuators to a remote robot to remotely control through the actuator signals movement of the robot. Conversely, in another type of encounter, a humanoid robot can be configured with sensors for sending sensor signals to a body suit having actuators that receive the sensor signals, such that a person wearing the body suit feels what the humanoid robot senses.
Also disclosed in other types of encounters is the use of a camera supported by a surrogate sending video images that are overlaid with a virtual scene, which images are rendered by goggles worn by a user, or in the video images can be morphed into a different image that is rendered by the goggles.
As also disclosed in my published application is the use of a pair of surrogates and a pair of humans that are configured such that a first one of the pair of humans in a first location has its own surrogate in a remote second location and through the surrogate can experience stimuli that occurs at the second location, whether those stimuli are tactile, auditory, visual, etc., and vice versa.